Does Obama Have a Harry Reid Problem?

LAS VEGAS You could sense when they campaigned together that Barack Obama and Harry Reid—as different as two politicians could be—had a genuine affection for one another.

I still remember a moment during the 2012 presidential campaign when Obama, the great orator, joked about Reid’s limited skills in that department, and the Senate majority leader, sitting behind the president, grinned as broadly as I have ever seen him. The hug afterward was like many I saw—it appeared heartfelt, not perfunctory.

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I later asked someone who knew both men if this was real or staged, and he insisted the show of affection was authentic. The relationship between Washington’s two top Democrats had already survived revelations in 2010 about Reid’s description of the president as being able to speak in a “Negro dialect” if he wanted to, and it would withstand last year’s tension over the White House’s legislative agenda sinking in the Senate miasma.

From what I’ve seen and reported, Obama appreciated Reid’s willingness to always (or almost always) have his back in a congressional process he disdained, and Reid loved that the president let him do what he does best—wrangle votes for impossible tasks such as passing Obamacare—without much interference. The White House knew that down the avenue was Harry’s House, and the president respected that.

Until now, perhaps?

Reid has been inconsistent on many issues during his long career in the Senate—immigration reform, gay marriage, gun rights. But if there are two subjects on which he has not deviated, they are opposing free trade agreements and blocking incursions into congressional authority.

Both of those Reid pet peeves dovetailed last week when the president declared in his State of the Union address that he wanted free trade agreements and would circumvent Congress on any issue on which the Gang of 535 tries to block him. So it was no surprise—but also highly significant—that Reid chose to speak out against the free trade pronouncements, and did so in the immediate aftermath of Obama’s big night.

Reid was asked Wednesday by reporters about the president’s plan to pursue broad trade negotiating authority, which would prevent Congress from amending the major trade deal he is pushing, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP. Reid bluntly replied, “I’m against fast-track.” But would he prevent a vote? “We’ll see,” he said. “Everyone knows how I feel about this—Senator Baucus knows, Senator Wyden knows, the White House knows—so we’ll see. And I think everyone would be well advised just to not push this right now.”

Everyone? He’s talking to you, Mr. President.

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Reid has long been President Obama’s most important and most consistent ally in the legislative branch, from the majority leader’s early support of the then-Illinois senator’s presidential bid to being his water-carrier for much of his legislative agenda to exercising zealous (some would say overzealous) help for the president in his re-election, including his fantastic, now-disproven claim that Republican nominee Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for 10 years.

That’s why this latest dust-up is significant. Considering his mastery of legislative legerdemain and his canny ability to keep his obstreperous caucus behind him, especially in an election year, Reid’s words about fast-track trade should not be discounted, even as they appeared to be by the president, who took his post-SOTU road show to Wisconsin to hype his—and labor’s—demands for a higher minimum wage.

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Jon Ralston, contributing editor at Politico Magazine, has covered Nevada politics for more than a quarter-century. He has worked for both major Las Vegas newspapers and now has his own site, email newsletter and television program.